Fishing Tournament RSVP

Welcome

Nova Southeastern University (NSU) is proud to present the 2015 Fort Lauderdale Billfish Tournament, in affiliation with the Marine Industries Association of South Florida (MIASF). This year’s tournament builds on the rich tradition of the Fort Lauderdale Billfish Tournament and showcases our commitment to preserving our seas. This annual tournament is a conservation and cash prize fishing event with the mandate of the release of billfish and responsible take of fun fish.

The Tournament begins with the Kick-off Party and Captain’s Meeting on Friday, February 27th at our NSU Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Ecosystems Research. The fishing tournament, weigh-in and an Awards Reception will be held on February 28th at the Bahia Mar. The event promises to be a great time for a very important cause.

All event proceeds fund scholarships for students at NSU’s Oceanographic Center for studies on fisheries, coral reefs, and the marine ecosystems at local, national, and international levels.

In our beautiful new NSU Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Ecosystems Research, the Oceanographic Center conducts strategic research on many important areas of the marine sciences. Participants and sponsors of the Tournament event have generated scholarships to our Ph.D. students. This year’s scholarship recipient, Ph.D. student Matt Johnston, will be researching the spread of marine invasive species in the Caribbean basin using cellular automata and agent-based computer models. The work has already yielded fundamental insight into the voracious spread of lionfish through this delicate ecosystem and resulted in numerous scientific publications. We will announce the new scholarship recipient at this year’s Captain’s party! http://www.nova.edu/fishingtournament/scholarship-awardees.html

Your support will change lives, fulfill academic aspirations, and protect our oceans. We look forward to hearing from you.

My PhD work utilizes modern molecular genetics tools to investigate the contemporary and historical ecology of large open ocean and coral reef fishes (sharks, billfishes, groupers) that are of national management and conservation interest. Global declines of many marine apex predator fishes have occurred throughout the past few decades, and urgent management and conservation actions are required to prevent further declines and facilitate their recovery. To assist fishery managers in these actions, I am investigating a suite of biologically important questions pertaining to three commercially and recreationally exploited species: the roundscale spearfish, the Nassau Grouper, and the tiger shark. My research focuses on investigating the current stock structure of these species across their distribution, the relative size of their populations, their genetic diversity, and their contemporary and historical population demographic trajectories.

Four peer-reviewed journal publications have thus far resulted from this work (listed below), and five more planned publications are in various stages of writing. This work has also been presented at seven professional conferences to date.

Synopsis of Projects

Over the past few decades, there has been increasing concern about the population status of many billfish species as they are heavily fished in pelagic fisheries either as targets or as by-catch, and their management is made complex due to the international nature of their fisheries. Adding to this management complexity is that one billfish, the roundscale spearfish, was only recently validated in 2006 as a legitimate species by my advisor's lab. The lack of historical recognition of the roundscale spearfish is due to its strong morphological similarity to the heavily overfished and highly prized, recreationally fished white marlin. To make matters worse, it is now clear that the roundscale spearfish has frequently been misidentified as the longbill spearfish as well. To aid in the management of all billfish species, some of my PhD work has centered on using genetic tools to provide managers with information regarding the biology, distribution and stock structure of the roundscale spearfish. I developed genetic tools which have been used to (i) investigate and define the Atlantic distribution of the roundscale spearfish, (ii) assess the connectivity of North and South Atlantic populations of the roundscale spearfish for management purposes, and (iii) compare the demographic history and relative population sizes of the roundscale spearfish and the white marlin.

During my time as a PhD student, I have also had the opportunity to study the charismatic Nassau Grouper, a species of great conservation concern on coral reefs. Due to high levels of historical commercial and recreational fishing, the Nassau grouper has sustained alarming declines across its geographic distribution, resulting in an Endangered listing on the IUCN Red List and current consideration for Endangered listing under the US Endangered Species Act. In the US Virgin Islands, recognized Nassau grouper spawning aggregations have declined to very low levels; however, a remnant spawning aggregation historically numbering over 1000 individuals at Grammanik Bank, St. Thomas, has seemingly begun to recover since implementation of protective measures in 2005, and may now comprise approximately 200 individuals. The genetic consequences of such large aggregation declines and its incipient recovery are unknown. My genetic analyses of these fish is revealing several key, conservation relevant findings, including (i) the good news that high levels of genetic diversity remain in the aggregation despite overfishing, and (ii) strong indications that migrations from neighboring Caribbean spawning aggregations, rather than local replenishment, may be driving the recovery of the St. Thomas population; these neighboring populations and their conservation may therefore be essential to the continued persistence of the Nassau grouper in the USVI.

Finally, I am also investigating the biology and population connectivity of tiger sharks across their global distribution. As one of few sharks categorized as a coastal-pelagic species, the tiger shark inhabits a variety of marine habitats and often demonstrates complex patterns of migratory behavior and habitat utilization. Given its global distribution, information pertaining to the connectivity of the species is needed to help international managers and decision-makers properly conserve this large marine species. My work on the tiger shark is focusing on identifying several key factors which will aid both conservation and management of this species. Using genetic tools, I have found that (i) tiger sharks comprise at least two separate populations, one inhabiting the western Atlantic, and one within the Indo-Pacific, (ii) these animals appear to be connected on broad spatial scales within ocean basins, and (iii) tiger sharks inhabiting different geographic areas show varying levels of genetic diversity which has implications regarding how to prioritize conservation efforts for this large apex predator.

My PhD dissertation project consists of determining how far excavating sponges (Cliona delitrix) are able to expand and disperse on Florida and Caribbean coral reefs. Excavating sponges are strong competitors able to kill corals and bioerode reefs, but little is known about their population ecology. Thus, I am combining a reproductive study with population genetics and ecological modeling to understand how these iconic sponges can take advantage of coral degradation under the effect of climate change. The NSU-Oceanographic Center Fishing Tournament Scholarship was instrumental in supporting the early stages of my doctoral study.